by Andreas Zaron
Translated by Pat Swayne
Let me know if anything needs fixing. The Discography and CD Tips are from Zaron's site, with German text, especially in CD Tips.

Peggy March
(Margaret Annemarie Battavio) was born in Lansdale/Pennsylvania on March
8, 1948.

At the age of 5 years
Peggy was already singing at weddings and family celebrations.
As a pre-teen, she began appearing weekly on a taped Country & Western
TV show on local stations.

At the age of 13
Peggy was discovered at the wedding of a cousin and landed a disk contract with
RCA. Her first single, "Little Me", a Song from the Broadway musical of
the same name, appeared in 1962, but was not a success.

In the spring of '63
15-year old "Little" Peggy March makes the hit lists with "I Will
Follow Him" and peaks at number 1 on the US Charts for 3 weeks (she holds the
record for 35 years as the youngest singer with a no. 1 hit). The song goes around the
world, and makes no. 1 in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Scandinavia. In
Germany the title climbs to no. 8.

Her first foreign
appearances and recording sessions are in Japan, followed in the
Autumn by a trip to Germany for the Radio Exhibition in Berlin. Caterina Valente
puts Peggy on her TV show in Vienna, and "Hello Heartache, Goodbye Love" becomes a
top 30 hit in Great Brittain. Also during this time "l Wish I Were A Princess"
is a hit in America. After 1964, Peggy has only two more hits
in the US top 100, but abroad she does much better.

When Peggy records for a foreign market, she does not just sing US hits in the language
of a particular country, but produces for that market. So she soon had her first no. 1 hit
in Japanese, and, with "Lady Music", had her first big success in the German language, followed
by two other top 20 hits that same year. After her appearance with the legendary San Remo
festival, she published her first Italian album (produced by Ennio Morricone), and "Te ne vai" promptly
became no. 1 in Italy. Her only Dutch single is still in demand today.

In January 1965
"Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye" climbs up to position 8 on the
German Charts, and in June, Peggy becomes, with a 100 point lead, queen of the
"German Hit Festival" in Baden-Baden. At this point, she finally becomes a first
class German hit star. Her title, "At 17 I Still Dream" remains in the German top
10 for 3 months, and is published in 5 other languages.

In Paris, she records
a French language single, while in Japan her first album with
Japanese songs appears. In Germany, she ends the year 1965 as the best selling singer
according to the technical publication Music Market.

Because of American
Laws which prevent Peggy from being in control of her finances until
she becomes 18 years old, her fortune aquired in the previous 3 years is squandered by her
manager, leaving her with only 500 dollars. But she puts this setback away quickly, because
she is still in demand in Japan and Europe.

In Argentina, Peggy
records some songs in Spanish, and guest stars in a concert with Josť
Feliciano. Besides various singles, the folklorish album "Amor" also appears, with some
Latin standards recorded especially for the South American market.

In 1967, Peggy lands
two giant hits in Germany with "Memories of Heidelberg" (no. 5)
and "Romeo and Julia" (no. 1). Together these two songs spend 43 weeks on the
German hit charts. In May 1968, she marries her new mannager, Arnie Harris.

In Japan, she has
another no. 1 hit with "Wasurenaiwa". At the same time, a very unusual
album appears in the US called "No Foolin'". At 20 years old, Peggy is still well known
as a princess of Teen Pop. So it is all the more strange that, right in the middle of the
"Flower Power" era, she would interpret Swing titles from the 40's and 50's. She suprises
the critics by performing these songs with considerable maturity, which is quite a contrast
to what she's been doing in Germany. There, in the same year, she is awarded a bronze "Otto"
by the Teenage cult publication Bravo. This is actually not surprising, because she
produces 4 hits in Germany that year, including "Telegram from Tennessee" and
"Canale Grande Number One", and in the previous two years sold
over 3 million singles.

In America, Peggy
doesn't have any more success in the charts, but she finds a new public by
touring the most famous nightclubs in the country.

However, in Italy,
and particularly in Japan, her records do very well, and there are
regular appearances on TV and in concerts. The married couple March and Harris
fall madly in love, not only with each other, but with Germany, and so they decide to
move to Munich. Peggy settles for 2nd place in the German Grand Prix preliminaries,
but her song, "Hey, That's Music To Me" still becomes a hit on the radio.

In London, Peggy can
manage only 2 British chart hits in 1969, while placing 5 singles
on the German charts that same year, where "In Carnaby Street" is one of her biggest hits.
With a change of record companies (RCA to Decca), she also slowly transforms herself from
a teenage singer to a young woman. While she still delivers successful singles, for example,
"Before Buckingham Palace", she begins putting songs on her albums "My World" and "My
Song for Peggy" that seem unusual for her (with songs from Jimmy Webb, Richard Rogers, and Otis
Redding). These and interpretations of international songs help Germans realize that she
is not just a hit singer. The songs from this period supply the material for her first
45-minute TV special, "Peggy in Berlin" for the ARD (a German TV network). 1971 gives the then unknown
producer Ralph Siegel his first big chance, when Peggy records the song, "Once In Love -- Always In Love",
which becomes a big hit and spends 21 weeks on the charts.

Peggy also enjoys
considerable success into the middle 70's in Japan, with countless TV shows,
annual tours, and many chart hits, including a Japanese version of "Love Story".
In 1972 her new producer Ralph Siegal changes her label to Ariola, but this cannot guarantee the same success
with singles she had before (25 top 40 hits in 10 years). Only "How Much
You Have Forgotten" manages to reach as high as number 30.

On TV however, Peggy
still has considerable public exposure. The 70's are a time of
big TV shows, and Peggy makes almost weekly appearances on important broadcasts which
were new concepts at the time, and wrote television history. These include
"The Peter Alexander Show", "Music is Trump",
Peter Kraus' "One Note In Time", the "ZDF Hit Parade",
"The Michael Schanze Show", "Monday Painters",
"Music from Studio B", "Star Parade",
Ilja Richter's "Disco", and numerous specials.

Peggy made up for a
disappointing 6th place at the 1973 German Hit Competition in Berlin
(with a bad title from Ralph Siegel) with a sensational second place at the
International Song Festival in Caracas, Venezuela, with "Nueve Estrellas".

In January 1974,
her daughter Sande is born, and Peggy takes a "baby break" for several
months. She has to forgo the Grand Prix d'Eurovision, because, for the second time,
she only makes 2nd place in the German preliminaries.

Peggy's concept album,
"Men" (produced by Ralph Siegel), attracts considerable attention,
even among respectable critics, and draws high praise for its interpretation.
But the project is too far ahead of its time for a "hit accustomed" German public.

In 1976, with a new
record company and producer, Peggy rockets into the hit parades
again with "You Can't Make Me". Her next single, "Costa Brava" is even published
abroad in Spanish and English. She also enjoys success in Japan again with a
sold-out tour of 16 cities.

In the summer of 1977,
Peggy March wins first place at the Festival de Canciones in Spain
with the title "You and I" against an international competition from 19 countries, before
300 million TV spectators throughout the world. And also in Germany Peggy
succeeds again with a genuine hit, "Fly Away Pretty Flamingo", which climbs up to position 15 on the
German sales charts and sells over 400,000 copies (this corresponds to a gold
single, at least by today's measure).

At the beginning of
1978, Peggy inspires public acclaim at the music fair "MIDEM"
in Cannes with her One Woman Show, and in the same year she also goes on a
well received concert journey through the DDR (East Germany).

In her first big
theatrical role, Peggy plays in the Cole Porter musical
"Seidenstruempfe" ("Silk Stockings")
in Kaiserslautern, and also on tour. She also represents Germany
sucessfully at the Song Festival in Zopot, Poland.

In 1979 Peggy tries
to do an English language album again, but the
attempt to swim along on the Disco wave with "Electrifying"
fails.

At the start of the
80's her pop record sales decrease and
many companies no longer want to extend their contracts. The two last Singles for EMI are
compositions by Peggy, which have good radio play; however, a planned album on
that label is not carried through. EMI declines, saying it is too American and too
limited in appeal.

The Harris Family
become homesick, and also they desire to complete their daughter Sande's education
in the USA, so the beginning of 1981 finds them back in their homeland. Peggy
takes acting lessons in Los Angeles, plays theatres, and gives concerts with her
own band. During the next ten years she regularly makes short visits to Japan and Germany
for television broadcasts and festivals. Also her talents as a songwriter
develop magnificently. She co-authors "Manuel Goodbye" (with Audrey
Landers) and "When the Rain Begins to Fall" (with Jermaine Jackson & Pia Zadora), with
both titles reaching number one all over Europe with gold and platinum honors.
In 1989 she produces a self-written album of childrens songs in the USA.

At the start of the
90's there's a German-language hit revival in Germany, and Peggy March
makes her comeback. In 1993 the label Cook International publishes her CD
"All Women Want Just One Thing", and in the same year Peggy wins the
"Golden Tuning Fork". In the coming years she is eager to return to TV, like in the
70's, and is in demand on tour with the German TV Hit Parade,
and at festivals in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She also begins to paint, and has
her own exhibitions in Munich, Nuremberg and Hamburg. Disk sales are not as brisk
as in earlier years, but her singles do make the
radio airplay lists, and in the space of two years she publishes the albums
"The Freedom To Be A Woman", "A Handful of Paradies"
and finally, "The Best of: Milestones".